Exploring Yoruba Language Maintenance Strategies Among Yoruba Families in Kano State

Language maintenance in a minority context requires conscious individual and community-level strategies to counteract the assimilative pressures of dominant language environments. This study explores Yoruba language maintenance strategies among Yoruba families resident in Kano State, North West Nigeria. Using a qualitative phenomenological design, data were collected from 25 Yoruba families in Sabon Gari, Kano's established settler community, through semi-structured interviews with parents and young adult children. The study examines the specific practices, beliefs, and social networks through which families attempt to transmit Yoruba to second-generation children living in a Hausa-dominated linguistic environment. The theoretical framework draws on language maintenance theory, intergenerational transmission theory, and ecological approaches to multilingualism. Existing literature on Yoruba communities in northern Nigeria has focused on commercial and social integration rather than on language maintenance as an analytical focus. This study addresses that gap with family-level data from Kano. The research investigates whether formal strategies such as home language rules, Yoruba classes, and media consumption coexist with informal strategies such as grandparent contact and extended family visits, and which strategies families consider most effective. Findings are expected to reveal that informal social network strategies, particularly regular contact with Yoruba-dominant relatives and participation in Yoruba community associations, are perceived as more effective than formal home language interventions. Recommendations will address community support structures and the design of language maintenance resources for Yoruba diaspora communities in Kano. Keywords: language maintenance, Yoruba families, Kano State, intergenerational transmission, minority language.